IBDvalueinvestin (99.65)

LLFH an Explosive Earnings Chinese Coal play

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This tiny microcap under $200M is expected to earn .94 eps by April 2010.Guess where its trading? At only $6+ because it has not uplisted from the .ob board yet but soon enough it will be and you wont be able to buy it under $10 by then. Remember LIWA at $6+, YONG at $6+, TRIT at $10, RINO at $10?

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Japanese steel shares soared Tuesday on continued upgrades from analysts with a bullish view on the demand outlook for next year, even after a conservative projection by China surprised the industry.

The rally came after Goldman Sachs said it was "turning maximum bullish" on Asian steel industry and on Japan in particular.

In a note issued Tuesday, the brokerage house upgraded Japanese and South Korean steelmakers, rating JFE Holdings and Posco as its conviction buys and also upgrading Nippon Steel Corp., Kobe Steel, and Hyundai Steel to buy.

The brokerage placed its optimism on demand from China -- which has in recent years exported about 35 million tons of steel each year to Asia -- as the nation refocuses on domestic consumption-centric growth.

"We expect Asian steel demand to surprise on the upside in 2010 - mainly due to rising steel intensity of Asian economies," Goldman Sachs analysts led by Rajeev Das wrote.

They argued that every dollar worth of gross domestic product that China generates at home improves steel consumption by eight to nine cents, double the four cents of steel demand generated by each dollar of GDP that China earns from its exports.

"As Asian countries reconfigure their economies to generate more domestic-oriented growth, we believe steel demand growth will accelerate back to high rates seen earlier in the decade," they said. "When that happens, China -- the largest swing supplier of steel in the region -- may withdraw from export markets, creating possible regional shortages and hence, high steel prices."

Goldman Sachs' view on Chinese demand comes at time when demand projections from China itself have surprised the global industry.

In widely reported comments in global media, Lakshmi Mittal, chief executive of Arcelormittal and the outgoing chairman of the World Steel Association, expressed surprise at a forecast by China Iron & Steel Association that the mainland's demand growth for steel will drop to 5% in 2010 after an expected 19% increase in 2009, especially as the country's economy was estimated to grow by 8% to 9% next year.

Mittal said CISA's projections have tended to downplay growth prospects by a large margin. "At the beginning of this year, [CISA] was saying steel demand would decline 5%... Now we are seeing it growing 19% this year," he reportedly said.

The World Steel Association's projection of 7.6% growth in Asia-Pacific steel demand takes into account input from member associations, including China's.

According to the global industry body, India's steel demand will likely rise 12% next year, Australia's will soar 34% and Japan's will climb 16%.